{"id":80,"date":"2018-05-12T15:53:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T19:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/?p=80"},"modified":"2018-05-12T16:42:01","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T20:42:01","slug":"god-philosophy-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/2018\/05\/12\/god-philosophy-universities\/","title":{"rendered":"God, Philosophy, Universities"},"content":{"rendered":"

MacIntyre, A. C. (2009).\u00a0God, philosophy, universities: A selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition<\/em><\/a>. Lanham, Md: Sheed and Ward Book\/Rowman & Littlefield.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

MacIntyre poses three \u201cinternal philosophical challenges\u201d to belief in an omnipotent God: the problem of evil, the independence of human beings, and the problem of describing God within the limits of language.\u00a0 A common theme throughout the book is thus the problem of reconciling \u201cphilosophical truth\u201d arrived at by reason and \u201crevealed truth\u201d based on scripture.<\/p>\n

MacIntyre provides his \u201cselective history\u201d of philosophical thought, primarily as it pertains to and influenced Catholic philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle (with much on Augustine and Aquinas) to recent times. \u00a0There is an interesting section on Islamic and Jewish philosophers (the former made me wonder how Islam and Judeo-Christianity became so inimical).<\/p>\n

An important point in the chapters on Aquinas is that one cannot arrive at knowledge of God through reason alone (i.e. philosophy or natural science) but only through revealed truth (theology), because only God is both nature and existence and needs no further explanation (p. 76).<\/p>\n

In struggling with Aquinas\u2019s interpretation of Aristotle\u2019s ente (actual existing things) and essentia (the essence of things) I found an example helpful: \u201ccat\u201d is an essence, \u201ccat-ness\u201d, or species Felis catus. \u00a0But it has no concrete existence without particular individual cats, like my cat Mr. Patches, an actual cat who exists in the world.\u00a0 But \u201ccat\u201d is more than an abstract concept because the essence, the category, exists by virtue of particular cats.\u00a0 And all individual cats are \u201ccontingent\u201d because they might not have existed at all; they are contingent on genetics, birth, survival etc.\u00a0 Only God is not contingent because He is both essence AND existence, and is not dependent on either a category or individual representatives. \u00a0Thus \u201cGod\u2019s existence is not limited by his essence, as finite beings are \u2026 His existence IS his essence\u201d (p. 85).<\/em><\/p>\n

However, another difficulty I encountered and have not yet resolved is Aquinas\u2019s view of the unity of body and soul AND mind and body:\u00a0 does he see mind and soul as the same thing? (p. 80-81).<\/em><\/p>\n

In Macintyre\u2019s brief discussion \u201cAquinas, God, philosophy, universities\u201d (Ch. 11) he notes that for Aquinas, the purpose of education was \u201cthe achievement of understanding\u201d and \u201cto develop [students] into self-teachers, such that their exercise of their intellectual and moral powers enables them to become independent theoretical and practical reasoners\u201d.\u00a0 His \u201cordering of the curriculum\u201d was designed to lead ultimately to \u201cmetaphysics and theology\u201d once students had sufficient knowledge and experience to engage it (p. 94-5). \u00a0But, he makes two points of particular note:\u00a0 (1) as far back as the 13th<\/sup> century, universities were \u201cscenes of recurrent conflict\u201d in both the development of particular disciplines and their relationships to one another, and (2) that many students saw the aim of their studies was to complete them<\/u> (!) in order to \u201cacquire whatever qualification was needed \u2026 to proceed successfully to the next stage in their chosen future career\u201d (p. 93-4).\u00a0 We tend to think of these issues \u2013 specialization and professionalization \u2013 as recent developments, especially in the US, so it is salutary (and perhaps reassuring?) to realize how long these challenges to \u201cideal\u201d education have existed.<\/p>\n

In chapter 13, MacIntyre seems to tease us with references to the Spanish\/Portuguese dominion over Mexico and Peru and subsequent brutality, opposed by Thomist Vittoria and bishop La Casas, with no further detail. Instead, this chapter segues into skepticism and Descartes efforts against it. \u00a0MacIntyre dismisses Descartes reasoning for the existence of God (and skepticism) rather quickly by saying just because we might doubt (the evidence of our senses or reasoning) there is no reason to assume we are wrong.\u00a0 But, it does not necessarily follow that we are right!\u00a0 However, like postmodernism, the undeniable fact that skepticism doesn\u2019t \u201cgo anywhere\u201d is clear (if you can\u2019t know anything, there is no point to enquiry!).\u00a0 This is followed by an interesting account of Pascal\u2019s \u201cwager\u201d on believing in God, which differs from the popular perception that he was just playing the odds.<\/p>\n

Chapter 15, which deals with the \u201cnew universities\u201d is particularly helpful in clearly setting out the decline of Catholic philosophy and marginalization of theology following the Enlightenment, along with the proliferation of new disciplines.\u00a0 By the first half of the 19th<\/sup> century the university \u201cbecame a place where it is nobody\u2019s responsibility to relate what is learned and taught in any one discipline to what is learned and taught in any other\u201d, which was \u201cdeeply at odds with any Catholic world view and knowledge of the world\u201d (p.135).\u00a0 MacIntyre notes that universities showed \u201cextraordinary intellectual achievement\u201d during a time of \u201cgreat discoveries\u201d (such as those of Darwin and Mendel) but Catholics were \u201clargely excluded, sometimes self-excluded [but more often] by reason of the Protestant or secular character of modern universities (p. 136). For MacIntyre, the most significant reaction was the founding of a Catholic University in Dublin by John Henry Newman in the 1850\u2019s, which he describes as \u201cthe beginnings both of the modern Catholic university and of modern Catholic philosophy\u201d (p. 136).\u00a0 His discussion of Newman in this and the following chapter makes Newman\u2019s thinking and importance clearer than any text I have read to date (although see Collini, 2012, for an interesting critique of Newman).\u00a0 His explanation of \u201cthe moral limitations of a university education\u201d and \u201cmoral versus aesthetic judgment\u201d (p. 148-9) is particularly enlightening.<\/p>\n

MacIntyre concludes with a plea for more integration between the disciplines, and a call for Catholic philosophers to engage, not only with one another, but with those of all faiths and positions.<\/p>\n

Questions<\/h4>\n
    \n
  1. How well do we reconcile faith and reason in our courses, especially in the sciences? Are there courses where it is not really viable to even try?<\/li>\n
  2. If we cannot \u201creason our way to faith\u201d, how do we talk to students or colleagues who do not have faith about the above question?<\/li>\n
  3. Do we worry too much about the apparently age-old problem of students seeing education solely as a way to get qualifications and advancement (versus seeing opportunities to broaden their minds)?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    MacIntyre, A. C. (2009).\u00a0God, philosophy, universities: A selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition. Lanham, Md: Sheed and Ward Book\/Rowman & Littlefield. MacIntyre poses three \u201cinternal philosophical challenges\u201d to belief in an omnipotent God: the problem of evil, the independence of human beings, and the problem of describing God within the limits of language.\u00a0 A … Continue reading “God, Philosophy, Universities”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic-higher-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/cheb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}